When I was a teen, I struggled with debilitating test anxiety. I had trouble sleeping because I kept worrying about the test. I'd worry about getting into my dream college, and that I wouldn't get a good score, no matter how hard I studied.
I assure you, you're not alone!
Thankfully, there are some simple things you can do to battle your anxiety and prepare for the test. Many of these tips helped me overcome my own test anxiety as a student!
In this blog post, we partnered with Test Innovators to provide some helpful tips to combat test anxiety.
(P.S.: We have a PDF version of this test anxiety blog post so you can print it out for easy reference.)
Test anxiety can feel like worry or nervousness before a test, which may interfere with your ability to focus before or during test day.
Some symptoms of test anxiety include:
Some reasons for test anxiety are:
You're not alone; test anxiety is super common. 10-40% of high school students experience test anxiety.
The best way to reduce test anxiety is to study and take practice tests!
Here is Test Innovators’ three-step process for test prep:
You’ll want to mimic testing conditions as closely as possible, so the practice test should be full-length and timed and in the same format as the real test.
Pull up your results and ask yourself the following questions:
Focus on the areas you identified in the previous step.
Remember to take breaks and be kind to yourself. There is such a thing as over-studying!
For the latest information on the ACT and SAT, check out this blog post/podcast episode: ACT and SAT Must-Knows for High Schoolers
In addition to preparing for the test itself, try out these test anxiety reducers.
Let us help you!
You've got this! 💙
This article was originally published on September 17, 2024. It was updated on October 17, 2025 for accuracy and comprehensiveness.